Offers day: 3rd March 2025

[LaBee]

We will all know tomorrow. Just starting this thread for us to kill time. I wasn't fretting over it until this weekend!

Not sure what time our council (wokingham) releases the results -some councils are bang at midnight and others are at 5pm!

You've probably found it by now, but the AQS details are now up.

I'm in Wirral and got an email about 20 mins after midnight. I stayed up!
DC got first choice grammar 😀

Thinking of those who have to wait all day as I was impatient for midnight!

I've heard it was a lower birth year this year and definitely looks to be the case vs my eldest born in 2010, looking at the allocation tables for my county.

Some of my son's classmates have heard and others haven't - even when they've applied for the same school. We still haven't heard. Happy with any of our top 3 but obviously would rather our top choice!

Because I'm sad, I crunched the numbers. In 2010 a non high priority student had a 20% chance of getting a space at our school, this year it was 39%.

If you all live within the same LA (it is the home LA which has the responsibility to inform parents re the outcome of their CAF submission), then is there a difference wrt alphabetical order of surname, or email used? Can you log in to a parent portal on the home LA website?

@MarchingFrogs Id checked on the portal but no joy. But just had a email an hour ago and we've got our first choice 🙂

This might be a good place to say:
ACCEPT THE PLACE YOU ARE GIVEN DO NOT REJECT IT

Then worry about appeals or whatever.

We got first choice, so relieved! Good luck to all who haven’t heard yet.

please post with more info like where you belong etc. otherwise its pointless

I've looked back at previous emails from admissions and I had one at 3pm-ish and one at midday from Kent. Pretty sure they said 4pm those times as well.

Agreed.

I see a number of people have already started appeal threads. You stand the best chance of getting advice from the appeal experts on here if you start a thread with appeal in the title. I can't speak for the other experts but I will keep an eye on this thread. However, I may miss people asking for help here. If you have your own thread, I will almost certainly see it.

London offers come out 5/6pm and Hammersmith have just posted their "how places were offered" document. The school I applied for has gone from accepting all applicants in 2023 to 2 miles in 2024 and to 1 mile in 2025!! Despite a falling birth rate their number of applicants have significantly increased, probably due to vat on private schools.

I'm in London and haven't received an e-mail yet, but I logged onto the portal and saw our application outcome.

Although since then the site has crashed and I can't get back in!

@roses2 I can’t find this. Are you able to tel me how Fulham Boys was awarded please?

Transfer to secondary school 2025 | London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham

Click the link in the middle of the page

Can anyone tell me how I accept the offer please? I can't see anything to click on. It just lists the school and says 'current status school offered'. Don't I need to accept the offer or something? Please help

I'm in Kent, but the offer e-mail said to accept the offer by return e-mail. There wasn't an option to accept on the portal.

It depends on your LA - some don't require active acceptance and you are deemed to have accepted if you haven't declined @jellyfish2121

If you can't see a link to accept that's probably yours - which LA are you?

Same in outer London. The very best comprehensive distances offered have shrunk by about 25% vs historical average. It's mad in our area which is not very dense in housing to go out 0.8 miles for a secondary school. And top set state school kids who should get grammar don't.. presumably going to to prep kids. Some very distraught families blaming the VAT on private.

@GoPollock - it’s far more competition for the most sought after state schools. But there will be places apparently in the less sought after state schools, they are claiming, for everyone.
Kids have been displaced by 1 rung starting at the very top of the wealth food chain. We have all predicted this for months. In the end, it’s always the poorest kids who lose out or those with SEND. The rest just have to suck it up until there is so much backlash the VAT is reversed although the damage has probably already been done. I can vouch for the fact that those normally getting grammar in our state primary didn’t this year but the very top still got something just not the most selective because yes the places went to some prep kids who happen to be very clever, are in prep and have a tutor as well. At least we are all at transition points so no kids forced out of schools. Some of the school kids are losing their school places.

Yes the catchment for our local (excellent) secondary has shrunk to less than half a mile! A lot of families moving to the area is why; that’s also the impact of VAT on school fees. Instead of paying them, they move house right next to the school.

A lot of sad parents yesterday.

But I don’t think they’ll reverse the VAT. Do you? That was labour’s big promise. People will get used to it and the people who’ll suffer are the poorest children, not the rich ones whose parents they’re charging VAT to. Even the middle ones who can’t afford an extra 20% every year, but can afford to move for a better comp, those kids will be fine. It’s the displaced bottom who’ll struggle.

It's not true across London though- overall secondary applications are down again this year by just over 3% in London and will continue to fall meaning more places are available- in general the trend is to move out, which is why loads of primaries are closing. 7 out of 10 kids in London got their first choice so I don't think there were lots of sad parents overall...(and I know from some of DD's class that some of those first choices were...speculative to say the least).

The popular secondary DD is going to offered further out this year as a result (and we are very near a quite 'locally' grounded lower cost private that is also single sex and has a lot of the same features- you might reasonably expect some switching). There might be a few microclimates where there are otherwise a lot of quite wealthy families who are mobile and some 'beacon' schools that attract them, but it's definitely not true at a population level. It's also- unless you have a regular comprehensive, of which there are a declining number- hard to work out the overall admissions pattern for particular schools once you factor in banding, those fake 'bursaries' lots do, lotteries, faith schools, single sex. So few admit on just distance now.

The good thing about London is the overall school quality is excellent- you can choose your flavour. We're not rich at all and feel very lucky to live here and have that choice.

Completely agree Zone4flaneur. I feel very lucky that we live here and have such great choices in London (am zone 3 though!) Most people here got their first choice other than those that blindly ignore all the advice and info and put down schools with 0.5 mile distance criteria even though they live 3 miles away. One of the very sought after local schools seem to now have a hugely expanded last distance offered (am wondering it it is actually a mistake in the figures…)

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/children-fail-secure-place-secondary-school-london-b1214415.html

Seems some of the most expensive areas got the least 1st choice offered places like Hammersmith, Richmond, Kensington & Chelsea, Wandsworth etc - I think Lewisham was always a little tricky for state secondary anyway, maybe Greenwich too.
The areas the article quotes are:
“The number of successful first-choice applications fell from 77.8 per cent to 65.6 per cent in the City of London, from 72.3 per cent to 66.7 per cent in Kensington and Chelsea, and from 71.2 per cent to 66.9 per cent in Westminster.”